University of Melbourne 1972 bachelor of commerce graduate Sam Walsh accepted a lifetime achievement award from the university's business and economics faculty on Thursday and he said it was a cause for reflection.

''The phrase 'lifetime achievement' is deeply gratifying but it also has a slightly worrying pre-obituary tone,'' Walsh quipped, adding: ''I did wonder if it was coming to me a bit early.''

Walsh went on to say that at 64 years of age he still woke up with a spring in his step and felt he had a lot more to achieve: it's likely that he had his chief executive role at Rio Tinto in mind.

Walsh told The Wall Street Journal last month that he would be happy to stay on beyond his three-year term. He's been telling staff inside Rio that he has a lot more to do - and that changes the Rio succession scenario.

Walsh replaced Tom Albanese as Rio's chief executive in January last year when the group announced plans to book a $US2.9 billion write-down on a $US3.9 billion takeover of a Mozambique coal miner, Riversdale, and a new $US11 billion write-down of the value of the aluminium division it pumped up disastrously in 2007 by paying $US38 billion for Alcan.

Rio has written off almost two-thirds of the Alcan acquisition but the Mozambique debacle shocked the board when it was discovered and was an equally important factor in the decision to remove Albanese.

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Walsh was on holidays with his wife, Leanne, and staying at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore when the call came.

''I was 63 years old. Leanne and I were happy in Perth … I was running the company's iron business, which was travelling well, [and] serving as a Rio Tinto board director. In other words, I wasn't looking for a promotion,'' Walsh said on Thursday night.

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''Then, that weekend, I woke up to a flurry of emails that basically said: ''Drop everything, come to London, come as you are. There is an emergency board meeting.''

Walsh didn't have a suit with him, hadn't even brought a business shirt or tie. ''All I had was the Hawaiian shirt on my back. In 24 hours, I had a suit made for me in Singapore, I jumped on a plane to London and, within a few days, I was appointed chief executive.''

Walsh's successes since his appointment argue both for and against a baton-pass at the end of his present term.

He said he would cut operating costs by $US2 billion in 2013 and achieved cuts of $US2.3 billion. He said he would cut exploration and development costs by $US750 million and cut them by $US1 billion. He said he would pull capital expenditure down from more than $US17.5 billion to about $US13 billion, and hit that target.

His aim is to get annualised cost-cuts up to $US3 billion by the end of this year and to pull capital expenditure down to $US11 billion and to $US8 billion in 2015. The cuts are not delivered but they are in the mail, with the capital expenditure cuts in particular working to restrict the call Rio's big divisions can make on resources. The job Walsh was given in January 2013 is, in other words, arguably done, clearing the way for a baton-pass when his term expires.

However, his success is obviously also an argument for him to stay in the job longer. Age does not sideline him from consideration and the board is now in the happy position of having multiple options.

If Walsh were abducted by aliens tomorrow, Rio's chief financial officer Chris Lynch would almost certainly replace him. The former BHP Billiton CFO and Transurban chief executive was hired by Walsh in February last year and has been a key player in Rio's rehabilitation.

However, at 60 years of age he is not the internal favourite to replace Walsh if Walsh serves out his term or extends it. That position is held by Andrew Harding, the executive who moved across from Rio's copper group to run Rio's huge iron ore business when Walsh was appointed CEO.

The board has good options. With Walsh signalling that he wants to stay longer, the new question is: when will a change occur?

The missing link

Westpac's Australian Financial Services boss Brian Hartzer made a good fist of arguing that the bank was rebuilding home loan growth without sacrificing too much profit margin when he briefed analysts on Friday but comments he and St George banking group boss George Frazis made about business lending had wider relevance.

Local business lending is the missing link, not only for bank profits but for the economy at large. Its lacklustre growth has been a key sign that the non-resources economy has not been taking up the slack a retreating resources boom creates.

Westpac's business lending was up a modest 6 per cent in the December quarter compared with a year earlier and the bank's business lending book shrank by 0.6 per cent as companies continued to pay back debt and cut their gearing.

Hartzer said, however, that in some business lending areas the growth rate was 10 per cent-plus. Frazis nominated property lending and small business lending as areas of strength.

However, one trend is that companies are not immediately using credit they arrange: about $900 million of new Westpac business credit has not yet been drawn down.

Businesses were waiting for additional signals, Frazis said. They include stronger household consumption and confidence that the $A will not climb again - but companies do at least appear to be closer to spending and investing than they were last year.